Broken Trust – Can You Survive An Affair?

Soooo I’m ready to talk about something here on my ethical non-monogamy blog. As you may have guessed from recent posts… I got cheated on. Yes, that’s right – after I’ve been writing this blog for over two years now, digging deeper into my commitment to polyamory, trust, integrity, honesty, transparency, blah, blah, blah, turns out one of my partners (my beau) had an affair.

I delayed directly talking about it here because:

– I didn’t create this blog to air my dirty laundry or be a reality TV show of my life.
– I DID create this blog to help spread love, positive energy and yes occasionally solve problems as a group, sometimes my own. But some issues are better worked on privately before I make it public. Then I can report back what I learned.
– I didn’t want to write an angry, upset, unintelligible post about how I was feeling and how betrayed I felt. I didn’t think it would come out well or be beneficial to you. And frankly, I was even embarrassed. I mean, who cheats on a polyamorous blogger? That’s just a lame situation, ain’t it? Certainly ironic, that’s for sure!
– Simply put: Privacy. For myself and my partners, while we talked, processed, slept on it, sought help, tried to sort out what would happen next, etc.
– Even though I was angry, I didn’t want to embarrass my partner and “out” his indiscretion while we were in the very worst of it all. That just seems mean, and I do my best to try not to be a mean person. We all fuck up. Some fuck-ups are certainly bigger than others, but some of that is in the eye of the beholder – “let he who has never sinned throw the first stone,” etc. I am a “Recovering Cheater” after all (though my last indiscretion was over… 19 years ago around 1996… wow, how can I be THAT OLD?!?! But I digress…). I would say I am fully recovered at this point (19 YEARS, MAN!), but some of us are slower on that path.

I do take pride in sharing very openly my polyamorous adventures with you – the good, the bad and the ugly. And I’m still all for that! But there are many moments in life where we need to take care of ourselves first before we reach out to others(God, I wish more people understood that simple truth actually!).

Let’s just say… I’ve been meditating… ALOT! It’s been helping.

So what happened? All I’m really comfortable saying is apparently the indiscretion happened two years ago, lasted for several months, WHILE he was living with me (that part really, really hurts), and the girl broke up with him because she “freaked out” and that’s how it ended. Why did I find out now you ask? Because my beau did something incredibly… um… not bright… to bring it to light. It also turns out that the infidelity happened right after he had had his last big breakup that I have written about many times on this blog. And I know that many of us use coping mechanisms when something bad happens to us. I go for drinking lots of wine typically. At least two years ago, my beau went for sex. Looking back, maybe there were small signs. But he KNEW what our agreements were, and that I would flip the fuck out if he broke them, and I trusted that he was being honest with me about his other relationships – apparently he was with about 95% of them. Why lie about this girl? I’m not sure. I think it was a form of rebellious behavior to try to put a band-aid on the pain from the breakup. And maybe he didn’t want to “worry me” or have another big talk or whatever. We are still talking about all of this, but there are only so many painful conversations we can all have in a day or a week. One day at a time.

So when the shit hit the fan (sorry for all of the cursing in this post, but I’m from Philadelphia 🙂 ), it was REALLY TRULY ugly. My beau assumed we were going to kick him out and packed up his car to go God knows where. Once I found out what happened, there was screaming, crying, hushed whispers when I couldn’t cry anymore, pleading, and in the end, believe it or not, there were hugs. After we slept on it after the big reveal, what I realized is… we are a family. This is my family. And I love my family. We are not perfect. We are human. We are flawed. And until we get to the bottom of why this happened, there’s no way I’m going to kick a loved one out on the street when he might be at one of THE LOWEST points of his life, when he’s looking for support so that maybe he can turn a corner, to find a better way to live, to look deep inside to find out “Why did I DO that?” “Where am I going with my life?” “Why did I recklessly choose to hurt the people that I love most?” or lastly “Why did I think I could get away with it?”

…We have had many heart to hearts, all of us (my husband, my beau and I). I still don’t know ultimately what’s going to happen. But I aim to be the most compassionate, loving, sane person I can be while I/we figure it out. If at the end of the day, we decide we can’t get past this, or our values are too different, or I think this behavior is unable to stop and I’ll just get hurt again, well then… I guess we will break up. But that day has not come yet. We are in the middle of a strange journey. Each day is a little different. We are learning. We are growing. We are healing. I’m not ready to give up yet. My husband has been a freaking rock star through all of this, I gotta say too. Just truly extraordinary. Even to the point that he got deeply moved when he realized I was not kicking my beau out of the house, and instead was showing love and compassion and “let’s take this day by day before we do anything rash” type of thinking. Then I was touched that he was touched, and we were all a crying mess again on the other side of the fence!

They say love is letting go of fear. I say… love… just IS sometimes. Just sit with it. Meditate. Walk. Think. I still believe we are all connected. Let’s get through this life living as fully and functionally as possible! Who’s with me!?! I ain’t licked yet!(damn, I wish I was just licked right there. Haha, see I still have my sense of humor. That’s good!)

– Don’t Judge. Everyone has a story.– We are all hiding something.– Compassion can be found where you least expect it.– Family doesn’t always mean blood.– Take care of one another.– In order to grow, we have to step out of our comfort zone.

As always, feel free to comment on anything that I have written here, or on any of the articles that I shared. Your thoughts and contributions are welcome and encouraged. Spread love and compassion, take care of yourselves and have a great weekend!

Big tight hugs my friends! I have been in your shoes more than once! I am so proud of you for not reacting in haste. And kicking him out as a rash reaction to the pain! One day at a time my friend! Let love prevail! We need to catch up soon my friend! Miss chatting with you!

Thank you, Angel Barbie, for the love, support and encouraging words! I value your friendship highly, and am so glad to know that I can always count on you! You are awesome! I’m sorry that you have been down this road before, because it ain’t a picnic, that’s fo sho!

Kitty as a guy I can relate to what you’re saying. Keep in mind the old adage, “A hard dick has no conscience.” Guys are not always the sharpest knife in the drawer and we have a tendency to screw up as we always let our little buddy do all of the thinking for us. While not poly, we are swingers and like you don’t cheat as ridiculous as that sounds to straights. My only advice is to try and put it back in the past if you want to continue with him. I realize you’ll never forget it but time wounds all heels (or something like that) and the pain will ease.

Haha, thanks for the reminder on “A hard dick has no conscience,” and for speaking up from a guy’s perspective to help me remember how others view the world who have a penis. 🙂 Not cheating while being a swinger certainly does not sound strange to this gal, right here <—–! That is all great advice that I will take to heart. I still have more questions, and want to feel that ALL of the secrets are on the table. But once we get past that, and once we see if we can resolve what he truly wants and determine can we honor our agreements moving forward, I will do my very best to put it behind me. I think it’s good not to forget as I think that would be like putting blinders on after you learned valuable information about a person’s track record and decision making skills. Loved the “heels” joke. I <3 heels! 🙂

I’ll post about this later,but as you know we’re fellow serial cheaters before our respected relationship. To do what you did not only courage but a whole lot of love. The next few weeks will take a lot of development growth and a willingness to make this works. The thing us there are no guarantees to what the outcome will look like. But if nothing else and some point you will have a very deep wealth of experience about cheatinga not just as a cheater but somebody has been the victim of cheating

Thank you so much for your kind and heartfelt words. That is all very sound thinking and observations. Thanks for contributing to the conversation with your wise words. I feel like we have already grown quite a bit (the event actually happened six weeks ago now, before I spoke about it on my blog with the community), and we have already learned alot, including for me – more ways to deal with my own anger (and sadness). That is a GREAT point that I will have a deep wealth of experience about cheating when I am on the other side of this. As my husband likes to say, “Experience is what you get for not having had it.” I have little experience up to this point of being the victim of cheating – at least to my knowledge. 🙂

Wow. Trust is always the hardest part in any long-term relationship — exponentially harder in a poly one. I would have gone all Philadelphia, myself, and would have had a really hard time forgiving, for which, bless you.

Would it have been easier or harder, I wonder, if the cheating had been current as opposed to well in the past?

I agree that trust is HUGE and of monumental importance in a healthy relationship. The part that hurts is when you THINK you can trust someone close to you, and then you are proven otherwise by their actions. Yes, polyamory just has so many MORE moving parts. Hahaha! I laughed out loud when you said you “would have gone all Philadelphia” on him. Indeed, there was cursing and some not nice words exchanged during the big blowup. I have not actually forgiven him YET. I am working on it, and seeing how he does. He asked me what he could do for me to forgive him, and he is slowly working down the list. Yay for that… and it gives me hope. And we are still talking through things as well. He has had some epiphanies over the past few weeks of reflection, which is all good.

To answer your question, I believe it would have been much harder if the cheating was current or very recent, versus two years ago. And I very well may have not acted as compassionately. But it’s hard to say really. Thanks so much for your comments. 🙂

I suspect you’ll have to dig through a lot of them before you – the collective ‘you’ – unearth your truth(s). And those truths will become your cornerstones if you choose to build anew. It’s back breaking (and heartbreaking) work. I wish you luck.

Indeed, that is all true. I do believe though that people can change IF THEY WANT TO. I say that with confidence, because I indeed changed, as I am a former cheater. I cheated off and on for a decade and then stopped, cold-turkey. But only time will tell with other people. I can only speak for myself. We are actually in about week seven of getting through this ordeal, so there have been many, many talks, and revealed truths already. I agree that truth is a great cornerstone for a healthy relationship for sure! Thank you for your supportive and encouraging words. They are very much appreciated. 🙂
xoxo Kitty

Honestly, even though it was that long ago, I just want to hug you and tell you that everything will…eventually…be okay. And for the record, I am VERY grateful for this post; so much of what is on the web about poly feels like “hey, we’re going to downplay all the negative stuff and just tell you about the good things. Join my cult!”

One of my wife’s boyfriends broke up with her Sunday. Via chat. Because he’s that much of a dick. (Her comment later: “I’ve loved four men in my life…and two of them have broken up with me the same way.” The first was her first intimate LTR, who broke up with her five or six months before we met. The fourth love is the boyfriend who’s still sticking around, and he’s definitely not going anywhere–he told her Saturday he is no longer looking for out of state jobs because he doesn’t want to move away from her. So yay!) And we discovered the painful truth that even when you have other people around you for whom you feel just as deeply and who can hold you and support you and tell you everything will be okay, breakups still hurt like hell. (There’s a lot more under the surface here, but I don’t want to turn this into a novel. The short versions of the two biggies: (a) he was, for a short time, dating both of us, and (b) he broke up with both my wife and his LD relationship to go back to the emotionally abusive ex-fiancee Allison had finally given him the courage to end it with–permanently, we thought.) Maybe even more so, because she kept apologizing to ME when she had her initial breakdown Sunday night, for needlessly putting me through so much pain. I kept telling her she had nothing to apologize for, and eventually she will believe me. (We are now great friends with said LD, who lives in Minnesota, and I’m pretty much over the moon for her. So’s Allison, so not to the same extent, but to my reckoning, the relationship that ended was worth it ten times over because we met someone even better thanks to it.)

Anyway, back to my initial point: you never read about THAT stuff. So this post is, to me, exceptionally valuable. Thank you so much for it. You are, as always, a true inspiration, and I am so glad I found you while I was wandering out here.

Awww, thank you so much for your kind and heartfelt words. I can feel the hug – you are awesome! I do in fact believe that everything will eventually be OK. And I am thankful for that and my confidence in that outcome. Some days are of course better than others. Today is a good day. And thanks for saying that you are so thankful for this post. I do really try to talk about both the highs and the lows of polyamory. It is simply a relationship style choice. That is all – not the holy grail of perfectness, by any means. We are still human, dealing with other flawed humans, trying to figure it out as we go. And relationships evolve and change. So it’s an ebb and flow, not static. I only want people to know that they have CHOICES in how they DO relationship – not tell them that my way is the best way.

I am so sorry to hear about your wife’s recent breakup. That is for certain, isn’t it… that breakups always hurt like hell. They don’t get easier. And isn’t it funny how we are all connected, and you ended up meeting someone great through someone else, while the first relationship did not work out. How wonderful in the end.

And again, thank you for your complimentary words. You really made my day when I first read them. I actually don’t read alot of other poly blogs, so I’m a little surprised to hear that there is not alot of talk of the difficult stuff there, where a spotlight is shown on “the suck” of it all sometimes. But relationships are relationships. Things can and will go wrong, whether polyamorous or monogamous. I also am so glad that you found me here at our little corner of the web, Robert. You all inspire me too, very much. 🙂

xoxo
Kitty

May 2, 2015 at 2:17 am

George Juego

Thanks for sharing your pain, in a timely calm manner. First of all, congratulation on 19 years of polyfaithful. That shouldn’t be taken lightly. I am late in responding to your post, but here is my two cent.

Thinking as a man, I think he wanted to be “his own man” and be free of the obligation of relationship agreements. Something that men enjoyed when younger and act selfishly regardless of consequences. Being bad can be so much fun, at least for a few moments.

Those types of selfish actions can either make you a better person or walk away and never learn what harm it has caused. Showing unconditional love, even when it is painfully and uncomfortable is a great opportunity for everyone to learn. I wish your family come out stronger from this.

Thanks for contributing your words, George. I greatly appreciate it. To clarify, I didn’t identify as polyamorous until about five years ago. I just meant not lying and cheating behind any partner’s back (whether monogamous or otherwise) for 19 years. THANKS! I hear you that “being bad can be so much fun.” I did the same thing in the past, but it was a younger, more selfish me. I think my beau (and I) have learned ALOT from this experience, including how committed it seems we are to each other, to this family and to figuring out how to make it work. And that ROCKS! You are truly an awesome human being. Thanks for being in my life. 🙂